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20 - Buddhism

from Part II - Transnational and Religious Missions and Identities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2023

By
Matthew J. Walton
Edited by
Cathie Carmichael ,
Matthew D'Auria  and
Aviel Roshwald
Cathie Carmichael
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
Matthew D'Auria
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
Aviel Roshwald
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
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Summary

Buddhist nationalism has emerged again as a topic of scholarly and media attention, driven primarily by campaigns of violence and expulsion against Muslims in Myanmar, but also by similar dynamics in Sri Lanka and Thailand. Recent research on the intersections between Buddhism and nationalism not only follows the scholarly critique of methodological nationalism – resisting the urge to naturalize the nation and read it back anachronistically into history – it also questions assumptions of Buddhism as a unitary or even stable object of inquiry. “Buddhist nationalism,” where it exists, does not necessarily follow a set pattern; moreover, it is the conscious and largely intentional creation of actors with the relevant authority and stature to frame the two components as intrinsically connected. In doing so, they construct it through narratives and symbols of legitimation that are recognizably Buddhist and linked to particular cultural, ethnic, or political configurations.

Keywords

BuddhismTheravadaMyanmarThailandSri LankasasanaSoutheast AsiaSouth Asia
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Nationhood and Nationalism , pp. 437 - 458
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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References

Further Reading

Abeysekara, Ananda, Colors of the Robe: Religion, Identity, and Difference (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2002).Google Scholar
Bartholomeusz, Tessa, In Defense of Dharma: Just-War Ideology in Buddhist Sri Lanka (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002).Google Scholar
Borchert, T. A., “Buddhism, Politics and Nationalism in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries,” Religion Compass, 1/5 (2007), 529–546.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foxeus, Niklas, “The Buddha Was a Devoted Nationalist: Buddhist Nationalism, Ressentiment, and Defending Buddhism in Myanmar,” Religion, 49/4 (2019), 661–690.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, Elizabeth, Theravada Buddhism and the British Encounter: Religious, Missionary and Colonial Experience in Nineteenth Century Sri Lanka (New York: Routledge, 2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ishii, Yoneo, Sangha, State, and Society: Thai Buddhism in History (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986).Google Scholar
Kemper, Steven, Rescued from the Nation: Anagarika Dharmapala and the Buddhist World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015).Google Scholar
Keyes, C. F., Thailand: Buddhist Kingdom as Modern Nation-State (Boulder: Westview Press, 1987).Google Scholar
Obeyesekere, Gananath, “Buddhism, Ethnicity, and Identity: A Problem in Buddhist History,” in Deegalle, Mahinda (ed.), Buddhism, Conflict and Violence in Modern Sri Lanka (London: Routledge, 2006), 134–162.Google Scholar
Schober, Juliane, “The Theravāda Buddhist Engagement with Modernity in Southeast Asia: Whither the Social Paradigm of the Galactic Polity?,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 26/2 (1995), 307–325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seneviratne, H. L., The Work of Kings (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).Google Scholar
Turner, Alicia, Saving Buddhism: The Impermanence of Religion in Colonial Burma (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2014).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walton, Matthew J., and Hayward, Susan, Contesting Buddhist Narratives: Democratization, Nationalism, and Communal Violence in Myanmar (Honolulu: East–West Center, 2014).Google Scholar

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